問題四主要關注道德和執業管理。A部分的第一問要求考生評價擬在全國性報紙上投放的廣告，一共有8分。這也許是整張試卷答得至好的一道題。少數答得不好的考生傾向于僅僅只是重復了廣告的內容，然后評論：這不專業。第二問要求考生討論是否能夠給客戶提供融資業務，這道題考生表現得不是很好。B部分整體上還不錯，對許多考生來說，這是考試的倒計時一題了，可能因為時間，導致答案過于簡潔。

Question Four

This was the most popular of the optional questions,and focussed on ethics and practice management.It was very pleasing to see many candidates achieve a clear pass on both (a) and (b).

Requirement (ai) asked candidates to critically evaluate a proposed advertisement to be placed in a national newspaper,for 8 marks.This was probably the best answered requirement of the whole paper,with many achieving a clear pass,and quite a few maximum marks were awarded.The few unsatisfactory answers tended to simply repeat extracts from the advertisement and say ‘this is unprofessional’.

Requirement (aii) asked candidates to evaluate whether a corporate finance service could be offered to clients,for 5 marks.This was not well answered.While most candidates could state obvious issues,like whether one person would be enough to provide the service,unfortunately very few clearly distinguished between audit and non-audit clients,which was a key issue,as the scenario clearly stated that only one third of the audit firm’s clients were audit clients.Few dealt with the issue of the contingent fee in enough detail,with answers usually saying that it was 'unprofessional’ but not elaborating further.

Requirement (b) dealt with the ethical problems raised by long association of audit firms and their clients.For 7 marks,candidates were asked to explain the ethical threats,and to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of compulsory firm rotation.On the whole,this was well answered.Most candidates could identify and explain to some extent the various ethical threats posed by long association,with the familiarity threat being the most common to be discussed.The advantages and disadvantages were often dealt with reasonably well,though a lot of answers were just bullet point lists with no real evaluation provided at all.For many candidates this was the last requirement attempted,so the brevity of answers was probably linked to time management in the exam.